Wimbledon 2022 - Solving Wimbledon Tickets Puzzle

Getting Wimbledon Tickets

“How do you actually get tickets for Wimbledon?”

That has to be one of the most popular questions I get from fellow tennis fans. While I’m sure there are a few secret backchannels I don’t know about, here is the honest rundown of the main options—ranked from “sweaty camping” to “if you happen to be a professional tennis player.”

The 7 Ways to Get In

The Queue: The legendary British tradition. If you want a good seat for the show courts, be prepared to line up early—or camp out overnight.
The Public Ballot: The official ticket lottery. You throw your hat in the ring and hope Lady Luck is smiling down on you.
Ballot Returns: Keep a close eye on this. Wimbledon actually resells returned tickets from people who won the ballot but couldn’t make it. (This is how I scored my tickets in 2022!)
Debentures: Think of these as fancy multi-year season tickets. They guarantee great seats, but they will cost you a pretty penny.
Resellers (Ticketmaster / StubHub): These are typically legitimate secondary sales coming straight from debenture ticket holders who aren’t using a particular day.
Compete in the Tournament: Just make it to the quarterfinals. Simple, right?
Mix and Match: For context, I managed to snag my tickets through ballot returns back in 2022, and combined both ballot returns and the queue for my 2024 trip.

One Crucial Rule to Keep in Mind

If you’re planning to try your luck, take note: Wimbledon strictly allows only two tickets per household. Once you’ve secured your pair, that’s it—you’re locked out from buying any more. Play your cards right!

The Ballot Process: From September to Centre Court

Getting your hands on official tickets really does start simply enough:

Sign Up Early: Head over and join “MyWimbledon,” then enter the public ballot when it opens around September.
If you win: Consider yourself blessed—you’re completely set.
If you lose: Don’t throw in the towel. Wimbledon will eventually give you the option to check for ballot returns. If you’ve got a little bit of patience and time to spare, you will most likely score tickets through the returns. I know I did!

One quirk of the return process: you won’t know your exact seat number before you buy. You’ll get a general idea of the section, but it’s a bit of a blind leap of faith.

The Lottery of the Draw

If fortune really smiles on you, ballot returns can hand you incredible seats—even right down on the baseline in the front rows.

My own seat in 2022 wasn’t the luckiest draw in the world location-wise, but it didn’t even matter. Why? Because from those seats, I watched Rafael Nadal take on Taylor Fritz in the quarter-finals on Centre Court. Looking back, knowing how injuries have unfolded since then, I realize I might just have witnessed Rafa’s very last match ever at Wimbledon. Worth every bit of the wait!